Unburying the Undead

I’m reading a story at our writing group’s ‘showcase’ on Sunday afternoon. I loved the story I’m going to read until today when I told a very accomplished writer friend about it. “Send it to me,” he said, so when I got home, I read through it again and found a flaw in every line.

So tonight, sitting here writing a blog post, I’ve got a case of the ‘yips.’ This is what my dad called it when pro golfers suddenly couldn’t make the simplest putts. “He’s got the yips,” he’d say, relighting the stub of his cigar. The yips could go on for days, weeks, or months.

I made the mistake of reading my post from yesterday. It’s really good, I thought, well put together, beautifully written, meaningful.

I can’t write anything like that today. My writing is trash. My story is flawed. I should read something else at the showcase. I should beg off.

What am I even thinking that I should put all my ‘stories’ together in a ‘book?’ I should bury them all in the yard.

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I’ll fix the story and send it to my friend. And then I’ll practice reading it for Sunday. Then I’ll dig up all the other stories I buried in the yard, brush off the dirt and debris, and buff them to a high sheen.

Tomorrow.

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Photo by Sandra Seitamaa on Unsplash